Shades of Grey
by dont.kill.me.please
Summary: They're from two worlds. But an unlikely hostage situation has brought sworn enemies into something much deeper than love. Will Sakura suffer the same fate as her master? DeiSaku. Rated M for coarse language


Shades of Grey

~DH~

"No!" she screamed, and rushed at him, tears blinding her. Continuously, her loose boot buckle would get caught between her calves, tripping her occasionally. The only thought running through her mind was, _I have to save him. I can't let him die._ When she reached him, she straddled him and roughly placed her hands on his chest. His blonde hair was splayed out under his head, and when her hands glowed green with lifesaving chakra, he weakly shook his head.

"Sakura," he murmured. "Don't waste your chakra on me. Save it for your teammates, yeah." The tears kept dripping down her face, and blood from a cut on her forehead splattered his cheek.

"I lost everything once. I never want to see that again," she told him. "Deidara, I care about you too much to let you die on me." He shook his head again, wincing in pain as the cut on his neck was stretched, leaking even more blood. Her chakra was slowly healing the horrendous stab wound on his chest, but he could feel his heartbeat starting to slow.

"It's no use, Sakura-chan," he whispered, pain and sorrow lacing his voice. "Let me go out with a bang, yeah." She reached out to touch his dirtied cheek, twining a piece of bloodied hair around her left ring finger. With a shaky hand, he pulled the same strands of hair she was playing with out and braided them into a ring, which he slid onto her finger. With his other hand, he slid his hand into his pocket and pulled out a necklace, wrapping it around her wrist. She stared at the ring, which had started to come apart, and with one finger, melded the strands together with her chakra so there was a small band of braided hair in the place where a wedding ring would have gone.

"For you, yeah," he whispered hoarsely. "I was going to give you the necklace after the fight, but now it looks like I won't be able to, yea-" His speech quirk was cut off by a fit of horrendous coughing.

"Shhh…" she gently laid him down, putting her hands on his chest again. The tears were now flowing freely down her cheeks, dripping onto her black shirt and his bare torso. This time, her chakra wasn't here to save him.

"Sakura, you know how to make my bombs, right?" she nodded. "You can…destroy my body, yeah. It would be an honor." At this, Sakura let out a full on sob and curled up onto him. It hurt like hell, but he would put up with it.

"Deidara, why do you have to die like this?" she asked, her voice choked and cracking. With a last burst of strength, he kissed her brow.

"This is the best possible way to die, yeah. You mean so much to me. I just want you to be happy."

"I'll never be happy again," she protested, clutching his nearly lifeless body closer.

"You will. You'll find some guy that loves you, and you have lots of little pink haired babies with perfect chakra control and fiery tempers, yeah." She shook her head, and scooted upward till her lips found his. He tasted like blood, and tears. Probably hers.

"Sakura, I love you, yeah," he whispered when she pulled back.

"no..."

"I'll always…be with you…yeah…" his voice died out, and the last thing he saw before his vision darkened was her tearful face. His "inner self" broke into a fit of rage on how he had this beautiful girlfriend, and then he went and died on her. The former Akatsuki shoved him back where he came from, and with one glance backward at his lover, his friend, and the only person that had meant something to him, Deidara lifted his head high and left the destruction behind, his heart breaking every step of the way.

"No!!" Sakura sobbed into his chest, listening for the heartbeat that wasn't there, feeling for the rise and fall of his chest that wouldn't come, staring into his eyes that wouldn't stare back lovingly. She wrapped her arms around a cold, dead form that wouldn't return the embrace, kissed the lips that would never kiss back, and sobbed her heart out, knowing that he would never hear her, never hear her say that she loved him.

"Sakura-chan." She turned to look at the speaker that had disturbed her. Sasuke looked down on his teammate, his eyes cold, but hiding the sorrow that he felt at watching his best friend cry like that. "We need to get out of here as soon as possible. The Akatsuki will be here any minute." She nodded, silent, and stood up. Suddenly remembering something, she knelt back down and grabbed one of his clay pouches, his eyescope, a large lock of his hair, his scratched out hitai-ate, and the sketchbook she knew he always carried. In his bag of clay, she found a picture of the two of them, taken probably by Kisame from her hostage days. He was carrying her piggyback style, and on her face was the brightest smile she had ever worn. That had been the most un hostage like situation ever…wiping a couple of tears from her eyes, she put chakra into a clump of clay and, shaping it into a heart with her palm, placed it on his chest. She kissed his lips one last time, and walked the ten feet to where Sasuke was standing. Forming the ever so familiar seal, she let one last tear leak before whispering,

"Katsu."

Sasuke watched the whole interlude, wishing that Sakura would truly be happy again, for Deidara's sake. After Sakura said the word that solidified her lover's fate, she broke down into several pieces, and Sasuke wrapped his arms around her. She sobbed painfully in his chest, and he only whished that things could have been different. He wished that Sakura might one day come to love him, to move on with her life, to, quote, have little pink haired babies with perfect chakra control and fiery tempers, unquote. He wanted her to feel that she hadn't let Deidara down, but in his heart, he knew that she probably wouldn't love anyone again. All he knew was that he and Naruto would be by her side every step of the way, helping her move on with her life, and become the person she has always wanted to be. He smoothed her hair in his hands.

"Sakura-chan…" he was unsure where to go with this. Noticing the necklace still wrapped around her wrist, he untangled it and unhooked the latch. Pulling her hair back, he fastened it around her neck until the pendant was safely in place.

"Some part of him wanted you to move on, but another part wants you to keep loving him, to never let go." She nodded. The simple motion brought on a fresh wave of tears. "What are you going to do, Sakura? He was an enemy."

"I don't care," she pouted. "Enemy or not, Akatsuki or not, I love him. The world isn't a black and white place, Sasuke. There are many shades of gray, and you have to watch out for them, because they'll suck you in and Itachi will come out of nowhere wearing a tutu and he'll drill you, making you tell him that he is the master of mindfucks." Sasuke stared at her, not really taking it all in.

"What did they do to you while you were a hostage?" Sakura shrugged.

"I don't really remember anything but Itachi in a tutu and Deidara's hair being one big fat mess of braids." Sasuke ran a few fingers through his hair.

"Please tell me my brother was drunk."

"Oh, I can't remember. It might have been heatstroke." Damn. That _was_ the most _un_ hostage like situation he had ever heard of. His impassive, egomaniacal homicidal brother in a tutu? And a pink one at that? Itachi must have been drunk. Or drugged. Or both. Plus heatstroke. Plus Sakura. Equals…oh, God. At that moment, Sasuke felt terribly sorry for Itachi, Sakura's late boyfriend, and anyone else who endured her strung out state of disillusionment.

"Oh," Sakura kept babbling, "I remember something about Kisame's skin being orange for a couple days…maybe Tobi lost an ear…it's all so fuzzy." Sasuke stared down at her. She was still in his arms, and the fact that she was still clutching his shirt was a sign that her temporary happiness was a front. Inside, he could see that she was crumbling, and it took all of her willpower to remain coherent.

"You are one strange little girl, you know that?" he told her matter-of-factly. She simply smiled, a small, wistful smile that made his heart pang for her. He rested his chin on top of her head, and she let the tears flow once more. She never needed to know who killed Deidara. Sasuke couldn't tell her. It might just be _his_ body that she blew up next.

"That sounds like one hell of an adventure, being captured by the Akatsuki and then turning their skin orange and cutting off their ears and braiding their hair and forcing them into tutus two sizes too small and then falling in love with the one who had to cut his hair to get all the braids out." He was panting from his run on sentence, and to Sakura, the pure agony she felt every time she thought of _him _was too much too bare. Sasuke was bringing it up way too much, and he couldn't handle any more. She pulled away, grabbed her stuff and Deidara's, and ran toward Kohona's gates, desperate to forget about a blonde haired ninja that had turned her life upside down and inside out and then fucked it up completely, perhaps permanently. Itachi was the master of mindfucks? Pssshhh. Deidara claimed that title, as well as the master of heartfucks, sanityfucks, and wellbeingfucks. Well, maybe the author of this little story is the master of mindfucks, but it takes a mindfuck to imagine another mindfuck in a pink tutu two sizes two small with sequins. And the bow. Don't forget the bow. Mindfucks toy with one another. Did that make Sakura a mindfuck too? She didn't know. Maybe she was a physicalappearencefuck, seeing as she beat up so many people. Or maybe… she stopped herself there. Wow. Deidara really did a number on her, didn't he? Oh, and one last thing; _never, __**ever**_ trust mindfucks that have been writing random, twisted one shots on a couple pounds of sugar and an hour and forty-five minutes of sleep.


End file.
